


Touch and Go

by matronage



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 11:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2619572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matronage/pseuds/matronage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamora was unlike any woman or being he’d ever met. With her circuitry in his hands, his fingers grazing and exploring her cybernetics, she was like the promised land for the techy in him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch and Go

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me for any weird word flow or typos; I'm not 100% sober but I finally wrote Rocket/Gamora and I wanted to post it since I couldn't find any other fics.

            When Rocket first realized his feelings, it was while he was tuning her up.

            It had started out awkward enough. She’d never approached him about it, and he’d never asked. He figured it was a sensitive spot for her, and he knew more than anyone else how that felt – to have that tender sliver, walking on eggshells to avoid having it prodded.

            But then she’d seen him tinkering, building bombs and modding guns. She watched for a while, coming into his space in silence and just looking. Sometimes, she stood quietly in the doorway. Her presence wasn’t unnerving, but comforting. It seemed strange to him, how he didn’t mind it. Sometimes she would sit in the cramped room he worked in with Groot in his pot by his side, reading or meditating. Other times, more often towards the first time he finally got beneath that skin of hers, she would sit and just stare. Her eyes followed the movements of his quick and nimble hands with intense precision. Something inside of him had stirred whenever he shot a quick glance behind himself and caught her eye. Her gaze was always so calculating, so fixated, and it made something in his chest burst to life, buzzing inside of him like an angry hive.

            A few months after she started watching, just after they’d settled back on the ship after a particularly rough mission, he’d caught a glimpse of her in her room, her door open (strange, he’d thought with a wrinkle of his snout, since it was automatic) while she sat with her back to the doorway on her bed. She was focused on her arm, turning her shoulder over and over as she fussed over the cybernetics beneath her skin. Rocket sniffed and walked in, briefly rapping on the door with his knuckles as he passed it. She looked at him over her shoulder, unsurprised, and now that he thought about it, it was so obvious that she had planned it. He nodded towards her arm as nonchalantly as he could, trying to ignore the weight in his stomach.

            “Need some help with that, Gammy?”

            The small smile she cast him barely nudged the corners of her lips, but it made his stomach turn all the same.

 

\----

 

            Gamora was unlike any woman or being he’d ever met. With her circuitry in his hands, his fingers grazing and exploring her cybernetics, she was like the promised land for the techy in him. They made idle talk while he finished tuning up her arm, then he watched her as she rolled her shoulder again, trying it. No sooner had he finished than he knew he was done for. Her eyes moved from her arm to meet his gaze when she let her arm fall to her side and that small, nearly indiscernible, smile was back.

            “Thank you,” she said simply, her fingers brushing past his ears before he even realized it.

            “No problem,” he said, proud of the steadiness in his voice despite the turning in his abdomen. “Let me know if ya need anything else.”

            He hopped off of the bed and towards the doorway. He could feel her eyes on his back, and a swell of pride rushed over him. He left her room knowing they were in the same boat.

 

\----

 

            The second time he worked on her did not come until months later. Most of their relationship had been defined by occasional spats and rare moments of clarity where they would look at each other and just _know_. He’d never experienced it with anyone else, not even Groot. The moments were always fleeting; he would dwell on his creation, on his physical form, on his past, and just a short look shared assured him that he was not alone. But those moments would pass so quickly, and he always found himself wanting. Just a bit more, just a longer look, just more time with someone who _understood._

            When they fought, it was petty, and there was no fire behind it. Even when he was angry with her (she sucked the joy out of everything, why couldn’t she just let him do what he wanted to do?), expressing himself felt natural. She never approached him later with ill feelings, never held what he said against him, and he tried to do the same. She understood it better than anyone else that when he was scared, unsure of himself, or lonely, he lashed out. Sometimes he lashed out just because he needed to, because he was so tired.

            Gamora understood. So when she came into his cramped workspace again, months after the first time, and rested her hand on his shoulder, he had no problems leaving his current project to help her out. She sat, cross-legged, practically bent in on herself with him behind her, his fingers working at the base of her neck. She was mostly silent as he worked, her body relaxed. After a long break in brief conversation, she said, softly: “Thank you.”

            He kept working, his eyes trained on the task at hand. “Don’t thank me.” He was the one getting the better end of the deal.

 

\----

 

            They were at a shitty spot on some shitty planet, and Quill was working over someone on the other side of the bar. Rocket had finished more drinks than he cared to keep track of while Drax and Gamora had gone off to do who knew what in the throng of people. Groot was somewhere – on the ship maybe? Rocket decided he’d had about enough and started to pull himself together to head back when a hand brushed against the back of his neck.

            Gamora looked down at him as she rounded his chair, stopping at the bar next to him. A smile tugging at her lips, she scratched her nails delicately beneath the fur on his neck, over the skin. He blinked up at her, then flashed her a toothy grin.

            “I figured you’d’ve been back at the ship by now,” he teased. She rolled her eyes and sat next to him, leaning over slightly so he could hear her.

            “I’m about to,” she admitted and he was suddenly aware of how steady her gaze was with his own. “Would you like to come with me?”

            “Yeah,” he said before he realized it, and thank the Gods he sounded so sure, because he actually felt like he might have a heart attack. Gamora’s smile widened as she hopped off of the seat. He followed her to the exit, to the loading dock, and onto the ship. Once they were in her room, the realization came crashing down.

            “Gammy, I’m gonna be honest with ya,” he said as the door closed behind them. “I—”

            She was unzipping the front of her suit, and his mouth snapped shut. She quirked a brow, tilted her head, and the smirk at her lips had him buzzing more than her cybernetics. He didn’t say anything else.

 

\---- 

 

            “Thank you,” she breathed against his ear, shaking next to him. He laughed, a quiet, satisfied snicker that made her shoot him a look that he could _feel_ in the dark.

            “I should be thankin’ you,” he said with a grin.

            “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, after a brief silence, “you should.”


End file.
